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House Panel to Unveil TSCA Reform Bill With Goal of March Markup, Chairman Says

Feb. 6 --House Republicans are hoping to finish a draft
bill to revamp federal chemical law by late February with an eye toward moving
the measure through a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee in March, a
subcommittee chairman told Bloomberg BNA Feb. 6.

Rep. John Shimkus
(R-Ill.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the
Environment and the Economy, said he plans to hold a hearing on the draft
measure, also by the end of February, and will have the draft bill completed
before then.

Shimkus said he hopes to have his subcommittee approve the
bill by mid-March and put it before the full Energy Committee “maybe late
spring or early summer” in hopes of getting the bill to the House floor after
that.

Shimkus highlighted three key issues to be addressed in the bill:
the extent to which it would preempt state regulations, addressing chemical
industry fears that their confidential business information on chemicals could
be disclosed and the degree to which the bill should prioritize reviews of new
chemicals posing the greatest concerns.

Republican efforts to revamp
the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act in the House are moving as Sen. David
Vitter (R-La.) is pushing for Democratic support for his TSCA reform proposal
(S. 1009), which he co-authored in 2013 with the late Sen. Frank Lautenberg
(D-N.J.).

Shimkus said his House version “will be shared with Democrats
prior to our legislative hearing” in the coming weeks, but many Democrats are
skeptical of Republican promises of inclusion in developing the bill.

No Current Role

“Well, they are not drafting the bill with us, and
we haven’t seen what it is they are proposing,” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.),
the top Energy Committee Democrat, told Bloomberg BNA.

“Usually with
bipartisan bills, you are actually working together on drafting a bill,” and
Republicans have shown no willingness to seek Democrats’ input, Waxman
said.

TSCA authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to collect
data on new chemicals to evaluate and assess possible health and environmental
risks, but the agency isn't required to review existing chemicals.
Environmental groups and other supporters of a stronger law argue that there
are more than 80,000 chemicals currently on the market, but few have been
fully assessed for the risks they pose to health and the environment.

The Environment and Economy Subcommittee held its fifth and most recent
hearing on TSCA on Feb. 4, focusing on sections that authorize EPA to require
new testing or mandate that existing chemical industry data be submitted to the
agency (see related story).

Waxman and other subcommittee members said
the lack of toxicity data and other chemical information was a key weakness in
the law revealed by a West Virginia chemical leak in January, which impacted
the Elk River, a significant source of drinking water for the surrounding
area.

Middle Ground Needed

Shimkus acknowledged that he and
others working on TSCA revisions in the Republican-controlled House will have
to find some middle ground in the months ahead, given that it would have to
clear the Democratic-controlled Senate.

“I’ve said this before: The law
was passed when I graduated from high school and really--it’s not doing it’s
job,” the chairman said of TSCA, which hasn't undergone significant revisions
since it was signed by President Gerald Ford. “With some of these groups, I’m
saying, if they get 75 percent of the loaf they ought to be happy--because
that’s a lot better than no loaf,” Shimkus said.

To
contact the reporter on this story: Dean Scott in Washington at dscott@bna.com

To contact the editor responsible
for this story: Larry Pearl at lpearl@bna.com

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